The 8-oxo-deoxyguanosine triphosphate (8-oxo-dGTP or 8-oxodGTP) is a nucleotide that is capable of triggering DNA mutations in vivo. Either during normal metabolic activity or under exogenous stimuli, cells will produce a large amount of reactive oxygen species and oxygen-derived free radicals, wherein —OH is highly reactive and can damage biological macromolecules such as carbohydrates, nucleic acids, lipids and amino acids. In nucleic acids, more than 20 kinds of oxidized bases have been detected, among which guanine has the lowest oxidation potential and the C atom at position 8 is the most easily oxidized by hydroxyl radicals to generate 8-oxo-guanosine (8-oxoG), and therefore, 8-oxoG is the most abundant oxidized base in the cell and plays a key role in influencing the stability of genetic information. Reactive oxygen species and oxygen-derived free radicals cause DNA oxidative damage mainly in the following two ways: one is where the guanine in the DNA strand is directly oxidized into 8-oxo-guanosine (8-oxoG); the other is where deoxyguanosine triphosphate (dGTP) in the pool of nucleotides is oxidized into 8-oxo-deoxyguanosine triphosphate (8-oxo-dGTP). 8-oxodG can be mismatched with adenine (A), and the efficiency of the mismatching is almost equivalent to that of the match with cytosine (C), resulting in the base transversion of A: T→G: C, which is the theoretical basis of DNA mutations caused by reactive oxygen species.
No research on the role of 8-oxo-dGTP in the prevention of tumorigenesis and against tumors has been reported either at home or abroad.